by W Winters
The frustration, even the contempt, show in her expression. “Keep your hands here.” My voice is deep and the threat is there. I can tell she’s biting her tongue and I love it. I love taming my wild girl.
“Let me be very clear. I would have loved to get lost inside of you and give you every pleasure imaginable. But I will not be made a fool, Bethany. Do you understand?”
“I’m not a fucking idiot.”
“You put a knife against my chest,” I rebut. “That doesn’t make you a smart woman, does it?”
“I’m sorry,” she tells me again and her gaze falls to my chest, but I grip her chin, stealing her attention back to what matters.
“Do you think words are enough? Words are meaningless.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t go back. What more do you want from me?” She screams her question, the hoarse words ricocheting in the restaurant.
Even now she pushes me. She’ll never stop. I know she won’t. The fire inside of her will never die.
And I love it. I will live for the moments she defies me.
Knowing that to be the truth, I pin her hands above her head when I thrust inside of her this time and push my chest to hers. My muscles scream and a cold sweat breaks out along my back as I rut between her legs, hard and deep, listening to her strangled cries of pleasure.
I nearly don’t stop. I nearly ruin the punishment, but fate would have me go through with it. The leg of the table that’s closest to me, buckles and breaks. Forcing us to fall as the table crashes to the floor.
Silencing her scream with a desperate kiss, I pull her body on top of mine as my back falls against the broken wood. With an arm wrapped around her back, I roll over to lay her on the floor.
I only take a moment to make sure she’s all right, and her response is to writhe under me, begging me to keep fucking her.
I slam myself as hard and deep as I can inside of her and stay right there. She claws at the floor, screaming and moaning with nothing to silence her cries.
Watching her gasp for air and struggling to contain herself, I push the question out with what little control I have left. “Tell me what you really think of me.”
I shouldn’t have asked and it shouldn’t matter, but in this moment, being inside of her and having her at my mercy, I need to know. More than anything else, I need to know the truth.
She struggles not to thrash under me as I rub her clit, still buried inside of her. “Tell me the truth, cailín tine.”
“I love you,” she practically screams the repressed truth and I still. My body tenses, even as she continues to thrash beneath me, heaving in air and still pushing me away, although weakly.
I have to move. Before I lose myself inside her, and before she says anything else.
She loves me.
I fuck her with long strokes, each of them penetrating her as deeply as I can and pulling out until I’m barely inside of her.
Each time she lets out a moan of sudden pleasure and then her eyes seek mine, wanting more, needing me again and again.
I draw out her release, teasing her like this and nipping her lips. All the while hearing her say those words over and over in my head. She loves me.
She whispers it again, right when her pussy tightens and she cries out her orgasm.
When I finally feel my own release, I sink my teeth into her neck, not biting her, but needing to do something so I don’t groan out words I’ll regret.
The haze of desire fades slowly and then all at once when I sit up, pulling myself away from her, and she finally looks me in the eyes.
For a long time, the only thing I can hear is both of us breathing, both of us getting a grip on what just happened. She said she loves me.
As I clean between her legs, pressing the cloth napkin against her clit and forcing her head to fall back from the pressure, I’m all too aware that I didn’t say the words back.
And I don’t plan on it.
“You’re not going to your friend’s house to put her in danger and you’re not going to a fucking hotel and leaving my men out there to watch over you. You’re coming home with me.”
Shock colors her expression at first when I stand up and leave her where she is. She reaches for her tank top before anything else and then finally looks up at me.
“I don’t love you.” The words rush out of her, the hurt written on her face. She tries to swallow up the evidence of her lie, but it doesn’t work.
“Of course you don’t,” is all I answer her, burying the sensation that grows inside of me. I turn my back to her while putting my pants back on as she cleans herself up. “You’re coming home with me,” I repeat, focusing on what matters. A truth she can’t deny, unlike what she’s doing now.
The chair behind me groans against the floor as it’s moved and I peek over my shoulder to see her nearly dressed and avoiding eye contact. “Did you hear me?” I ask her, feeling something stir inside my chest with restlessness.
Bethany kicks aside a scrap of wood to stand and nods her head while answering me, “Yes, and that’s fine. I don’t want to go back to my place anyway.” Her voice is low, too low and devoid of any of the fight I’m used to from her.
The silence of the restaurant is uncanny as we wait there, with my eyes on her and her eyes anywhere else.
“Seth’s waiting for us outside. You’ll follow me and he’ll be behind you.”
She nods and audibly swallows but doesn’t say anything else as she wraps her arms around one another. Not crossing her arms in front of her chest, but laying them atop each other. Her gaze lingers on the front door, but she doesn’t move until I splay my hand on the small of her back.
That gets a reaction from her. She walks faster, fast enough for the pressure of my touch to be meaningless.
No one’s out front of the restaurant, no one except Seth leaning against the hood of his black Audi and keeping watch. The light dusting of white on the ground outside is evidence that the snow must have come and gone already. Leaving behind it a thick white fog, and the curtain of white across every surface.
Bethany lets me open the front door for her and I’m granted a muted thank you. Same with her car door. She doesn’t look toward Seth at all; she merely focuses her attention on each of her steps.
Seth’s gaze turns questioning. Anyone with any common sense can see she’s not well.
“Upset” is hardly a word I would use to describe Bethany. It’s too weak. She’s too volatile to simply be upset. But right now, it’s the only word I can find. She’s upset and I fucking hate it.
I love you.
She said it and then took it back. She’s confused and upset. Confusion runs deep in my mind as well. For the first time since I’ve set eyes on her, I’m uncertain what to do with her.
I want to hear her tell me those words again, and to mean it. But I would never wish for a girl like her to fall for me, either.
“You can close the door, Mr. Cross,” she tells me, staring at my shoes from where she sits in the driver’s seat. The clinking of her keys is all I can hear as I stare down at her, waiting for her to look up at me. My hand is still firmly on her car door.
A gust of wind passes and I can hear Seth clear his throat in the distance. Still I don’t look away, and neither does she.
“Bethany,” I murmur her name and she hums back, a sweet sound, seemingly just fine, but still doesn’t look at me.
“What’s wrong?” My grip tightens on the door when the question leaves me. I already know and I feel like an asshole. She’s a mess. That’s all she’s been since I’ve come into her life. A mess, but a beautiful masterpiece. She’ll do more good in a week at the hospital than I’ll do in my entire life. There’s no questioning that.
“Nothing,” she answers in a whisper, then peeks up at me, toying with her keys in her hand and offering a sad smile.
“You look like you’re going to cry.”
Her voice in response is stubborn, but it also cracks. “I’m not.”
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nbsp; “Get out of the car, Bethany.” I give her the command and step back although I keep my grip on the door, pulling it open wider and waiting on the vacant street. I can’t help but notice our footprints on the sidewalk. Hers are so much smaller than mine, but the spacing is the same. They’re in complete rhythm and time with mine.
She clears her throat as she steps out, moving over the curb and onto the sidewalk. Toe to toe with me, she stands there, both of her hands cradling the keys. Maybe to keep them from making noise, maybe to give her something to focus on other than me.
Either way she looks me in the eyes, daring me to accuse her of being on the verge of tears again. I can see it.
Instead I tell her, “I don’t love you too.” I don’t think about it; I just say it. Feeling the restlessness sway inside of me, panicking and not knowing how she’ll react.
Her large hazel eyes widen even more, for only a moment as her lips part just slightly and other than that, there’s no response at all. No telling as to what she thinks. Until she tries to speak and the first word can’t even make it out unbroken.
Instead of carrying on with the intention of speaking, she snags her bottom lip between her teeth to keep it from trembling and stares at the window of the car door rather than at me.
I add, leaning closer to her, close enough to feel her warmth and for her hair to kiss against me with the upcoming gust, “I lied to you and you lied to me. Now we’re lying to each other.”
I hate myself in this moment, for daring to lead her into this path. But the other path is away from me. I want her close, I need her as close to me as I can have her.
Her hazel eyes swirl with a mix of emotions. Complicated and in broken disarray, the amber colors bleeding into one another, but each still visible and adding to the beauty of her gaze.
“I don’t love you.” She shakes her head as the statement leaves her. Her body consciously denying the very words she speaks.
“I don’t love you too,” I repeat.
She’s searching. Trying to figure out whether or not I’m lying to her and I don’t know what she’ll find. I don’t know if I’m even capable of loving anymore. Not the way she needs. Not the way she deserves.
Before she can find whatever truth there is, I crash my lips against hers, letting go of the door to pull her into my arms. Her soft lips melt as I deepen the kiss. Her small hands reach up to push against my chest, but instead she quickly fists my coat and pulls me in even closer.
With a swift glide of my tongue against the seam of her lips, she parts them for me and lets me in. In the middle of the empty sidewalk, I pour everything into that kiss, holding her body against mine. Letting her feel what it is that I have. Maybe she can feel what I have for her. Maybe she’ll know it better than I can.
I can feel her heart pound against her chest, maybe hating my own, maybe needing another to commiserate with.
Bethany
The quiet is uncomfortable. Or maybe it’s just my thoughts filling up the silence that are uncomfortable. Every second, I go through an entire day. Each day since Jenny’s gone missing, even worse when she was found dead, and then each day that Jase tore through the shambles of my life.
That’s what the mind does when placed in a quiet room.
His bedroom is a subdued masculinity. A calming presence that begs me to lie down and sink into the plush linens. But then… the thoughts come back. The memories. The what-ifs.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, I focus on the chaos that used to be. The Rockford Center kept me busy, kept me going. And I miss it.
I miss my patients. Marky Lindgren in particular. He always had a story to tell. Sometimes the patients are violent. Sometimes they’re vile with what they say. Sometimes all they do is cry, and I keep reminding myself of what I’d tell them when they apologized.
“You’re having a moment and you can have as many as you need.”
People mourn differently. Funny how on this side of it all, I find my own advice something to ignore. I don’t need moments; I need a way forward.
And that’s why I miss Marky. Marky’s a liar and he spins stories about the other patients to occupy his time. I remember one night he told me how the male patient at the end of the hall had slept with one of the patients that had just been admitted.
He said it so confidently, so seriously, I almost believed him.
And then he told me how she just had to break it off with her husband who was in room 3B. But the man in 3B wasn’t going to let her go without a fight and that’s what all the commotion was about. Why everyone was crying and yelling.
He said it was a love triangle and then he added… the man at the end of the hall would be fine with a threesome, but he’d never admit it to the woman. I shake my head remembering how he said it, baiting me and waiting for a response I didn’t give him.
Each time someone would walk past his room, he’d create a dialogue on what they thought of the adulteress and the sordid affair that never took place. Some of his comments made me genuinely laugh.
The first time I let the smile show on my face, he laughed and then I with him.
He would break up the time with stories that didn’t matter, stories you could get lost in. I let myself get lost in them too, because the man in 3B was always angry due to having Alzheimer’s and not knowing why he was there. And the man at the end of the hall was violent because he wanted to end it all and we had to strap him down to keep him from doing just that. All over a job he’d lost. It was just a job and just an income. But the debt was too much for him to bear.
Real life didn’t matter in Marky’s stories though, and amid the chaos, the rounds of delivering pills and checking on patients, Marky’s stories made some horrific days tolerable.
No matter how bad the days got though, going home I felt accomplished, needed, and like the chaos was worth it.
The man at the end of the hall found a way out of the hole he’d dug himself with bankruptcy. The man in 3B remembered some of the best times of his life when his family came and they’d just come two weeks ago before I was told to go on leave; it made all the difference for him.
I still don’t know about the woman who just came in. She’s not from around here and we were told to keep her “attendance” – as they called it – private.
I wasn’t even given her full name, only initials.
I miss the chaos, I miss Marky’s stories, I even miss my boss and the bullshit rotating schedule. I miss my mind being occupied.
Right now, in the quietness of Jase’s bedroom, I’d prefer to be in the halls of the Rockford Center, wondering what everyone else’s story is and helping them with their tales, rather than having to face my own.
A creak in the hall catches my attention. A sputtering in my chest echoes to the pit of my stomach. “Jase?” I call out when the door doesn’t open.
It’s his own bedroom, so if he wanted to come in, surely he would.
But the door doesn’t open and I’m left staring at a doorknob I haven’t dared touch and wondering what the fuck I’m doing.
Neither of us spoke last night really. Which is for the best. I don’t trust the words coming out of my mouth when he’s near me.
So we didn’t speak, apart from the necessary details.
Half a bottle of zinfandel, a full dish of chicken parmesan, and a soft pillow in a quiet house, with the firm chest at my back of a man who says he’ll keep me safe… and I fell asleep. A deep sleep, one where you don’t move and you don’t dream, because your body sleeps just as heavily as your mind.
That’s the kind of sleep I had and then I woke up to a note from Jase, letting me know that he’d be back later tonight and to “make myself comfortable.”
I’ve been torn and now I’m breaking down. If I were at work right now, visitors might think I should be in one of the rooms, rather than in my scrubs holding a tray of medication to dish out.
Do I love Jase? I don’t know. It’s easy to want love when you’re hurting. It’s easy
to hold on to anything that could fill the void pain has caused. I don’t know what’s real, and what’s the product of coping.
Does Jase Cross love me? No. He doesn’t. Not at all.
I think he feels bad for me. It’s all sympathy. The way he looked at me tonight said it all. He feels sorry for me.
It’s such bullshit. But at least I’m safe. All I need to be, right now, is safe.
And that’s the dichotomy I’m supposed to make myself comfortable in.
He left me two rules on the slip of paper as well:
If the door is locked, stay out.
Your handprint opens the front door and the hall door behind the stairwell. Don’t open the hall door at the moment and don’t leave. I’m trusting you.
In other words, stay right where I left you. If I didn’t feel so tired, I’d have my ass out of that front door, and walk in knee-deep snow to some shady hotel I could afford. Just to spite him.
But I’m tired. All the sleep in the world can’t help the type of tired I am.
You may be tired, Bethany Ann Fawn, you may be sad and in a shit position, but you are still a badass. You are not going to take any shit. And those rules Jase left you, those rules that sexy motherfucker thinks he can lay down while trapping you here, those rules can go fuck themselves.
My little pep talk kicks my lips up into a grin and the lyrics to a Pretty Reckless song play in my mind.
Tell them it’s good. Tell them okay, but don’t do a goddamn thing they say.
It’s been my life’s motto. Nothing’s going to change that.
My first move is to push the curtains in the bedroom as far open as I can. They’re heavy and the sky is full of white fog, not offering much light at all. I think it’s the winter that’s gotten me so down, at least it’s part of the reason. The season can take some of this blame.
With a little more light in his too-dark-even-with-the-light-on bedroom, I go drawer by drawer. I don’t find anything interesting. Socks, neatly folded in a row. Same with his ties. I let my fingers linger over them, feeling the silk and wondering how he could even choose a tie like this, given the patterns are hidden this way.